


The Man from Nowhere

by blivengo



Category: Dark Tower - Stephen King, Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types
Genre: Based On a D&D Game, Book Series: The Dark Tower, D&D Backstory, Dark Tower References, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Fantasy, Gen, RPG, Roleplaying Character, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 14:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14978783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blivengo/pseuds/blivengo
Summary: A gunslinger is killed in Mid-World only to find himself in an unknown world with someone, or something, headed his way...





	The Man from Nowhere

_Part I:  Mid-World_

                My last quest for Gilead took me as far from the Inner Baronies as I thought I’d ever go. It feels blatantly foolish to think of it that way now, from here, but it’s the truth. I was sent to the strange outskirts, the Borderlands, nearly the end of where the Affiliation’s shadow fell on the civilization of Mid-World. Rumors had reached Gilead of strange folk on horseback stealing children, and, although most gunslingers, myself included, believed the original story from those distant fields had likely been unrecognizably distorted since it left the first teller’s mouth, it was not our way to deny succor to any who might require it. I was given my orders on an early morning during Mid-Summer, “under the Kissing Moon,” some might say, and had my paint mare, Della, on the road headed west toward Mejis in less than two hours’ time.

                I was offered a companion, but declined, citing the need for men at the ready should the rumblings of revolt spurred by the followers of “The Good Man” come to pass. I didn’t think a long journey to chase my tail was worth my time, much less anyone else’s. Besides, I didn’t mind working alone – though a little company that could do more than whinny in response would have been nice, especially since I kept away from the settlements unless I needed provisions. A gunslinger could come by a great many things should he wish to flaunt his status:  free lodging, free meals, free indulgences, but that also meant the inevitable spread of rumors and hearsay to all points of the map. I wanted the trip to be as uneventful as I hoped the situation would be once I got there. It was all for naught, though; I never investigated the missing children, I didn’t even make it to the Borderlands – I drowned in the Clean Sea just outside of Mejis.

***

                I’d kept my low profile for more wheels than I’d ever traveled, and was starting to forget my quest involved anything other than simply wandering when I first whiffed the salt wafting in with the fragrant flora growing wild along my path. I hadn’t decided beforehand to charter a ship, but something about that scent called me to the coast. When I came upon a small fishing village, I decided to let my gold do the talking and quickly secured passage to the far shore of the Borderlands for myself and Della.

                In hindsight, I should have been something more than wary of the giddy, black-clad fisher-turned-ferryman who so eagerly accepted such a course, but my senses were dulled from the monotony of my travels and I thought the strange man only greedy for some easy coin – I had offered him enough to live comfortably without ever taking to water again should he choose it, but that wasn’t his game. No, he was up to something bigger, something I fear may have ruined all of Mid-World by this telling…or he was just a gods damned old wizard that’d gone mad and was looking for a bit of wicked fun. I’ll never know.

What I do know, or what I think I know, if you ken it, is that I rose on the third morning, well out to sea with nothing in any direction except a blurring of water and sky. I took a step toward the side of the vessel to add my necessary to vast, frothy blue, and went hard to my knees, tripped by something wrapped about my ankles. I heard the man in black cackle from nearby. I rolled my eyes, and muttered, “I didn’t pay you to be a prankster,” in a low voice I meant only for myself.

He’d heard me though; he’d heard me very well, and offered a reply that was suddenly, impossibly, right at my ear, “oh it’s not a prank, gunslinger, it’s the beginning of the end of your tale.”

I was shaken, and one hand went instinctively to the butt of a revolver, but he was there faster, binding my hands with maddening speed while giggling like a tickled babby. I had forgotten the face of my father, forgotten it fully. I had failed as a gunslinger, and the man in black seemed to know this and relish in it. I tried to fight against the ropes, but my hands and legs were now entwined and pulling only drew the knots tighter. I was finished. I’d allowed my lackadaisical approach to this quest to turn my mind to mush and was paying the price to this pathetic fiend of a man who was now absentmindedly humming a foreign tune from somewhere I couldn’t crane my neck to see. Furious, I growled, “speak true, bondsman, what will you have of me?”

He replied in a fluted voice that seemed to carry on the song, “there’s no need for such pomp now, Jameson, son of Butler.” I paled and felt faint – I’d never told him my name, but, somehow, he knew it and that of my forgotten father. Vile magic was surely afoot, so I strained against my bonds with all I could muster, feeling the twine digging into my wrists, burning the skin with the friction. I screamed.

“Tut tut, gunslinger, that won’t do at all,” said the man in black, trading his singsong quality for a much more matter-of-fact tone. “You’re a miserable failure that surely wasn’t even worth my time, but, don’t fret, there are other worlds than this.” After that, I hadn’t even the time to curse him before I was hauled over the edge right where I’d been pissing those last two days. I struggled mightily at first, but managed to calm down and find a position where I could float and get breath. I was beginning to remember the face of my father, but it was far too late. I’d been drifting away from the boat, but suddenly felt a tug at my bonds and adjusted my view to look back and see that I’d been tethered this whole time. The man in black stood at my makeshift privy holding an anchor whose trail I didn’t need to see to know was tied to me.

The man in black grinned. “Farewell, gunslinger. Long days and pleasant nights.” He tapped his fist to his forehead and pushed the anchor overboard. For a moment of frozen time, everything was stillness, then came the abrasive sound of his uproarious laughter, then I was sinking. I held my breath and fought violently against the ropes, pulling bones and joints out of place, but having no luck breaking free. Finally, as my vision went to stars and pain racked my body, I gave in. For my last action as one of the great gunslingers of Gilead, I took a deep, cleansing breath, filling my lungs with the purity of the Clean Sea.

_Part II:  Faerûn_

                Everything was blackness and falling. Time and space were absent. I couldn’t tell if I’d just died, or if I’d been descending here for days, even weeks. Everything was nothing. Then, abruptly, I was waking up to the musty smell of damp hay and old wood. I thought maybe the last several years had been a dream and I was coming to after stealing a nap in the stables. I was sure if I looked around I’d notice a knobby-kneed Della sniffing the stall for grain. But, of course, that wasn’t the case. I was in some kind of abandoned shanty that was likely a transient shelter when such travelers happened upon it. I stared around in utter disbelief, lost in the dust settling through the beams of light pouring into the gaps between the rotting roof boards.

Coming back to myself, I decided to take inventory and realized that I had everything I’d been traveling with; the man in black, if there had ever been a man in black, didn’t even take my money, or my guns. As I thought of my guns my eyes went wide and my heart sank – water and guns don’t mix, and I had been as under water as a person can get. But nothing was wet, nor did it appear to have ever been wet. I checked my wrists for wounds, fractures, or dislocations, but I was as good as ever. I was stunned. I had lost all sense of reality. I sat there dumbfounded, beginning to rot along with my surroundings, when I heard the distinct rustle of leaves and snap of twigs that indicates someone trudging quickly and un-surreptitiously through the brush.

My long years of training came out of hibernation, and I was on my feet with both guns drawn before I’d even realized I’d moved. I found a soft board in the side of the shanty and popped it out with a sharp jab from my right elbow to give myself a clear shot. At this point, I could hear the on-rusher’s labored breath, as well as what appeared to be the slightly muffled thuds of two pursuers. _Don’t make assumptions, maggot, this could be a common thief being pursued by lawmen as easily as it could be an innocent being chased by bandits,_ the voice of my martial teacher pounded in my head, and, as usual, he was right. So, I waited.

What finally greeted my eyes was, in fact, a thief, but not a common one:  it was a young girl with an arm full of what looked to be horseshoes. I re-holstered my irons and crept soundlessly out of the shanty in the direction she’d soon be passing. With quick movements worthy of a gunslinger, I grabbed her with one hand around her waist and my other over her mouth so not to alarm those on her tail with her inevitable scream. She dropped the horseshoes in surprise and they made a damp thunk on the mossy ground.

“Cry your pardon, sai, it’s not my way to accost a lady, but what’s your trouble out here? And don’t ye scream, it’ll do neither of us a bit of good.” I looked her dead in the eyes, making sure she heard me well, then removed my hand from her mouth.

The girl responded, frightened, but sure of herself, “my father needed the shoes, sir, I meant no real harm, but we don’t have the money and, oh…they’ll kill me for sure, please, just let me go!” She struggled hopelessly against my grasp, landing blows on my hips and forearm.

“Stop this, for your father’s sake. Who would kill you over an armful of horse’s shoes? Tell me, I beg.”

“The smithy and his henchman! They’re corrupt, how don’t you know it, everyone knows it,” she said through tears of frustration.

“I don’t come from here, sai,” I said, putting all the calm I could muster in my voice. “What kind of blacksmith has henchmen? Say true, and quick, they’re nearly upon us.” And they were – I couldn’t see them yet, but I heard them, two men, shouting back and forth some distance apart from each other, like they’d spread out to cover more ground.

“He has the whole town in his debt because he charges so much and we all have so little. I just…” She trailed off, fully sobbing.

“There’s no time for this childish nonsense!” I reprimanded, putting my forehead to hers and peering eye to eye. “Speak true or I leave you to them!”

“I just wanted to do something nice for my father! He…he deserves so much better…” She dissolved into blubbering.

“We are well-met on the path, sai. If you seek succor, I shall, by the will of Ka, provide it.” She looked at me through watery eyes with the vacant stare of ignorance. I blurted, “do you want my help? Say ‘aye’ or ‘nay’ and let’s be done with it!”

“Aye,” she screamed, as one of the men that had chased her rounded the side of the shanty.

“There you are you—” His speech stopped and his mouth gaped in surprise just before the report from my right-side iron drowned out anything else he may have added while the bullet it fired put a hole in his chest, ostensibly silencing him for good. The girl, now free from my clutches, went to her knees and put both hands to her ears, clearly not used to the sounds of battle. I stepped around the side of shanty and there was the second man, staring blankly at his companion’s smoking corpse.

I raised my iron and asked, “are you the blacksmith, or was this him and you’re just his bondsman?” Looking him over, I saw that he carried no caliber whatsoever, and had only the knife he was wielding in his right hand for weaponry. _He chases but a child, only a coward would do so with a gun._ My teacher spoke up again, and was, again, quite right.

The man’s eyes bulged as he took in the sight of my gun, and he stuttered, “by the gods! What dark magic is that?”

I sneered, “it’s naught but the magic of powder and flame. Now, say true or forget the face of your father forever and be blown to hell:  are you the blacksmith?”

Seeming to find his courage, he said, “I am, and who are you? Some damned wizard the girl led me to? I know she has no money, does she pay you in skin?” He grinned at this, pausing, perhaps to reflect on what such an arrangement might be like, then went on, “I can surround you in girls just as pretty. Say the word and half the daughters of Prairievale are yours for the taking, many of them are not yet soiled, I’m sure.” He was practically beaming at this, his prick surely fully risen under his simple pants.

“Dare you speak this way to a man of Gilead, of the line of Eld?” I took a few quick steps and erased the space between us, pressing my still-warm barrel to his forehead. “I see you, heathen, I see you very well. You have forgotten the face of your father completely. Surrender or be sent to the clearing.”

“To hell with you and your—” Another report. Another corpse, this one with the top of his head blown clean off and his brains decorating the gnarled brush.

“You can come out now, sai, the shooting’s done,” I called back over my shoulder as I gently holstered my revolver. The girl crawled, apparently unable or unwilling to make her legs work, to meet me around the side of the shanty.

“You…you killed them…both…”

“Aye. And if I find you to be false, you’ll be joining them.”

“No! No, sir! These were vile men, the town will bless you, bards will sing your name for generations!” She got to her feet then, wide-eyed, looking at me as if I were Arthur himself.

“Gather your shoes and show me back to town. I’ll hold palaver with the leaders. I know a bit of smithing, and it seems the position’s open,” I said as I gestured with an open hand to the scalp-less man lying on the ground with a stupid look stuck on his face.

“O…okay,” she said, hesitantly, but added, seemingly putting things together, “okay! Yes sir, I’m sure you’ll make a much better smithy than he ever did.” And with that, she began collecting her horseshoes. When she was finished, she looked at me, expectantly, but I merely threw my hands up to show I was waiting for her to lead. And, so, she led. We arrived in the one-street town of Prairievale barely under an hour later.

After clearing the girl’s story of the criminal blacksmith, and telling this tale of vanquishing him – leaving out the part where I came to this unknown world after dying in my own – I secured my appointment as the new town blacksmith. And hence have I lived these last two or so years since:  simply, as a small-town blacksmith, all but giving up the way of the gun for that of the sword, though I occasionally make shooting displays to appease passing nobles, thus bringing good fortune on the town.

I thought that was what I wanted – well, it is what I wanted, but every so often the voice of my teacher creeps into my head to exclaim, _Ka is a wheel, maggot, and when it comes, it comes like the wind. You can’t stop it._ Exactly what it means, I can’t say, but I’m sure the answer lies somewhere far from Prairievale…


End file.
